


Bones Quiver Gently

by argle_fraster



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 Parabatai Lost, M/M, Parabatai Tracking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: Alec loses himself using the adamas stone to track Jace and finds himself struggling to find reality again.[an alternate, more in-depth look at being lost outside one's body and the dangers there where demons dwell]





	Bones Quiver Gently

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY, SO
> 
> I have this tradition to write myself terrible birthday fanfic, and this year my birthday was terribly bad (7 hours at a funeral!!!!!!) so I went a little overboard with writing myself fic. This is my first fic in this fandom and I haven't written fic in SO LONG it's actually embarrassing, and that's all I'm going to say about that. But when I saw the episode in its entirety, I was struck by how little danger there seemed to be to Alec, lost in this half-memory space, and thought it would be more fun to play up what might have been lurking there.
> 
> ANYWHO I'm a show-only fan so forgive anything that blatantly contradicts the books (I will never read them)
> 
> Title from OLIVIA's "Denial"

The tether of the parabatai rune was cool—a surprise given how much the sigil had burned when it had been seared into his flesh. Against his skin, the bond of the connection was a rush of cold air, winter against bare flesh, and his muscles first tensed before unclenching as he let himself relax into it. There was a moment of nothing, and then of everything, as if the sky and the stars had fallen down around his shoulders; falling into the tide of it swept him away from his body, from Izzy's voice and the smooth sheen of the bedsheets, until there was nothing around him and his boots were walking on air.

There was a tugging in his chest, the needle of a compass leading him in the right direction, and he sucked in a long, slow breath before letting all of his focus settle on it. _Jace_ , he said, to himself and to the nothing—the _everything_ —enveloping him. The rune fluttered against his skin in response, echoing through his bones. _Jace._

He let the rune pull him through the darkness. Beneath his boots, he could see the reflection of stars, but when he turned his chin skyward, there was nothing above him but a cloying, inky black. Something about it was unnerving, and Alec looked away before the entire thing swallowed him whole. He had to keep his wits about him—Izzy had told him not to go too deep, and the adamas stone was a burning fire against his palm, his reminder and connection to the outside world.

His parabatai rune was pulsing, in time with the beating of his heart, and it echoed all the way down to his toes as he let it move him along, towards Jace, towards the spark that bound them together. Slowly, ground formed beneath his boots, gray like the sigh of the world around him, until it was all cobbled rock and scattered stones skidding across the surface when his soles made contact.

The overload of sensations was disorienting, but the rune was still beating and humming—he was going in the right direction. The bond _wanted_ to be reunited, and ached with anticipation of it, and it pulled Alec to the edge of the strange stones made of nothing that he'd been walking over. There was a drop, a sheer cliff side sloping down into a blue-black pool, and he knelt by the side of it to peer over the edge.

Jace's reflection stared back at him. _A mirror._ Alec reached towards it and his rune sighed, contented, and then Jace was gone and there was only darkness—darkness that reached up from the depths with impossible hands and fingers that clasped around Alec's wrists.

“No!” Alec cried, and tried to pull himself free, but there was too much power behind the pool's tendrils and they seemed to sink down into his flesh. It burned, all of it, right down to his core, and he cried out as the whole of it propelled him forward and his boots slid across the rock towards the drop. “No! Jace!”

_Don't go in too deep,_ Izzy's voice said, and Alec didn't know if it was real or just a memory. He pushed back against the pull with all that he had, but the toes of his boots slipped over the edge and he tumbled, down, into the darkness that hissed and crackled like a fire.

“Izzy!” he cried, and nothing more, because he'd opened his mouth and the blackness had rushed in. He choked as the embers burned the whole way down to his lungs, devouring him from the inside out, and his rune ached, throbbed, and shrieked as his vision went dark, and there was nothing at all.

—

“Alec! Alec!”

He was seizing, body convulsing, and not even the weight of her hands on his shoulders could stop the tremors. Izzy's throat closed with fear, the bitter, copper taste thick on the back of her tongue; she pressed all the strength she had down, but her brother continued to thrash against the pillows and the blood from his nose trickled down the side of his face in one long, grisly arc, and all she could see, all she could feel, was the shaking in his limbs that threatened to undo all of her self-control.

_Alec—_

“He's gone too far!” Jocelyn said, from the other side of the bed. “He dropped the stone, the connection is severed—“

“We never should have done this,” Izzy gasped, and beneath her forearms, her brother was writhing. “This was too dangerous.”

For a moment, memories rushed up and blinded her: Alec with his bow and arrow, sparring together when Maryse had come down too hard on them both, her rock in a world too often spinning like a merry-go-round. On the bed, Alec was twelve years old and looking at her with one eyebrow raised, his mouth crooked up in a smile he tried to fight against; then Izzy blinked, and the image was gone, and all she could see was the red that was staining her brother's face.

“What have you done?” she whispered, to herself, to Jocelyn, to Alec's convulsing form.

“I was only trying to f—“ Jocelyn began.

“Not you,” Izzy cut her off, and beneath her grip, Alec stilled. Izzy was elated for a split second, her heart flying up to her throat as she stared down at him, but there was nothing: he was still, motionless beneath her palms, and the sudden lack of movement was worse than the seizing had been. Whatever had happened, Alec had slipped away from them.

“No,” she breathed. _Alec._ “No, no.”

Jocelyn bent over and scooped the adamas stone up from the ground. Her expression was open and sympathetic, but it just made Izzy's stomach roil. They never should have done something so dangerous—so _stupid_.

“Isabelle,” Jocelyn began.

“Give me the stone,” Izzy said, with as much steel in her tone as she could manage. “You've done enough.”

She leaned forward and wiped her fingers across his face, catching the blood but doing little more than smearing it towards his cheekbone. She willed him to move again, at least so she would know that there was something of him still there, but his body was motionless.

“Get out,” Izzy said, voice low, and she must have sounded dangerous enough, because Jocelyn did as directed with one last look towards the bed before she slipped through the doorway.

—

There was a stirred, poured, and then untouched martini sitting on the small table nearest the windows, and Magnus made no move towards it. He stared at the twisted dagger held upright with metal prongs on the middle of his table until the outline of the weapon blurred, and after he blinked the sensation away, he sat back, vaguely aware of how unbecoming it was to be moping on his own couch, chased by memories hundreds of years old—buried, but never really forgotten.

The city twinkled outside the large, uncovered windows, and he ran a weary hand across his face. If Ragnor could have seen what he was doing… but no, Ragnor was gone, and Camille as well, and all Magnus had to show for decades of his life was a scattering of antiques and a dagger that might as well have torn his own flesh for all the pain it had caused. What a sight he was: a high warlock, locked away in his apartment to stew over things best laid to rest. He wanted to laugh and found he couldn't muster the action, and _that_ was what finally propelled him up off his couch cushions and over to the small table to grab the thin-stemmed glass.

Self-flagellation tasted far better when served with a twist.

The screen of his phone lit up a second before the ringtone started— _Alexander_ , it said.

“I hadn't thought you would call until—“ was all the further he got before the voice on the other side interrupted him.

“Magnus, it's Izzy,” she said, tinny against his ear and thin, like she'd been stretched too far and was barely keeping everything together. “Alec, he—it's bad. He needs you.”

Magnus sat back down with so much force that half the martini splashed over the rim of the glass. “What happened?”

“Jocelyn gave him an adamas stone, and Alec tried to use it and his parabatai rune to track Jace, but something happened and he's—he's not waking up, and she said he went too far, and—“

_Jocelyn_. Years of going against his better judgment to help her and she was still there, the aching in his side that flared up every time something had gone horribly awry. Her presence bled into the past weeks despite everything, the motivation behind each chain of events that had splintered down his doors, and yet somehow she was still the one standing in front of all of them with hands spread wide, the picture of innocence, and the rest of them were just there to pick up the shattered pieces of the reality they had once known.

“Magnus,” Izzy was saying, startling him from his thoughts. “Magnus, _please_ , I don't know what to do. Can you help him? It's _bad_ , I don't know if—“

“I'll be there in ten,” Magnus cut her off, and ended the call with a furious punch to the screen.

—

Alec opened his mouth to breathe and got nothing but water. Lungs burning, he threw his arms up and pushed, _pulled_ , trying to get himself to the surface and the air simmering just above. The water around him—or was it really water at all?—was thick, like molasses, sticking to his arms and legs and dragging him down with extra weight. He kicked and kicked, until his face broke above the surface, and he was so desperate for oxygen that he breathed far too soon and still ended up choking, spitting out and coughing up a mouthful of it.

He pinwheeled against the water, or whatever it was, until his fingers came across something far more solid, and with a still-sputtering groan he heaved his body up onto the sand. It stuck to his fingers and his face, granules that dug into his skin with sharp angles, and for a second, it was all he could do to keep himself conscious. Some part of his training surfaced, belatedly, just as his parabatai rune began to ache again.

Pressing a hand against his side, he rolled over and stared up at… nothing. The sky above him was nothingness, blackness, a shadow that had swallowed the sun. He could see, but he _couldn't_ , and it didn't make any sense. There was a throbbing pulse in his temples and the tugging of the connecting bond at his side, and he pushed himself up with both elbows to look around.

It was a beach, but it wasn't; black sands that were somehow distinguishable against the ink of the sky and the black depths of the water. His rune tugged, insistent, and skipped a heart beat before doing so again, and Alec stood on shaky legs that trembled like the tide just behind him.

“Jace?” he called, and there was nothing save for his own voice echoed back at him.

But his parabatai rune hummed, an odd sort of agreement, and Alec swallowed down his fear; if the connection had led him here, then perhaps this was the way to find Jace. He couldn't go back—there was nothing there but the water that had nearly swallowed him whole. The only way to go was forward, and the tether between them trembled when he reached out towards it, trying to limit his focus. If he stretched out and concentrated enough—

Between his boots, a line of fire flared up into being and shot forward, a path of blazing light.

“Jace,” Alec whispered, and started forward to follow the flames.

—

“You need to let me in,” Magnus said, more growl than demand, but an order all the same. “I'm the only chance he has to—“

“The only chance _who_ has?” Aldertree asked. “If I recall correctly, you are well aware of the Clave's rule against Downworlders in the Institute.”

“Take me to Alec,” Magnus hissed, “or find Isabelle.”

Aldertree uncrossed his arms. “Isabelle? Why am I not surprised that she is involved in this?”

“I'm going to find him,” Magnus said, and when one of the nearby Shadowhunters took what was likely an attempt at a menacing step forward, he held a hand up in warning, and the man had the good sense to stop. “If you wish to try and—“

“Magnus!” Izzy called, and then the clicking of her heels, erratic and rushed, filled his ears. “Aldertree, let him in. I need him; _Alec_ needs him.”

“What is happening with Alec?” Aldertree asked.

Izzy's hands were on Magnus' arms, and she was shaking as her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt sleeves. “Magnus, please, you have to hurry, he's slipping.”

“Someone had better explain what is going on—“

Magnus whirled on the man, dropping his glamour and posed, fingers ready to snap in mid-air, magic swirling around his fingers and buzzing with the anticipation of release.

“Try and stop me again,” he said, very low, and Aldertree flinched back just enough to be noticable, “and I feed your entrails to a Hellhound.”

Aldertree's mouth parted, but Magnus didn't wait around to see what he was going to say. He let Izzy sweep him away down the hallway, blood pounding and stomach churning, and even though he knew his threat would come back to haunt him later, he couldn't find it in his heart to care.

The room was dark when he entered, but he could still see—and oh, he wished he hadn't. Izzy went immediately to the side of the bed, muttering under her breath about “bleeding again, Alec, no—“ and Magnus stalled in the doorway. Something constricted in his chest: something dark and angry and terrified, a spider spinning its web between his ribs to hold his lungs still. He stared at Alec's face as Izzy wiped the trail of blood away from his upper lip, and all Magnus could see was the end.

The part of his core still ragged from Ragnor flared up once again. _Won't you fight for this, my old friend? Fight for this boy you've allowed in?_

“Move,” Magnus said, and there was a twinge of guilt when it came out far harsher than he'd intended, but Izzy complied despite it. Alec's hand was cold when Magnus' fingers slid over it; he was far gone, then, and his body was reacting accordingly. He'd fallen through the connecting bond brought to life by the adamas stone and the physical part of him was crippled, hobbled, and calling out to find the missing piece.

“Oh, why, Alexander?” he sighed.

“What is it?” Izzy asked. “What's happening?”

He reached out with his magic, poking at the frayed edges he could see, but everything went very dark as soon as he pushed his way through the barely-there tether that had been strung between the strokes of Alec's parabatai rune, shadows fading as the minutes ticked past.

“Do you know what happens to Nephilim who fall into the space beyond this world?” Magnus asked.

“No,” Izzy whispered, and from the trepidation held within the single syllable, it was clear that she understood the implication anyway.

Magnus snapped his fingers down against his palms, magic shutting off with an ear-popping click. “They don't come back. There are… _beings_ in that darkness who would feed on them.”

“Demons?” Izzy asked. “He's being attacked by demons?”

Magnus stared at the dark lashes fluttering against too-pale cheeks. _Will you not search for this boy, then, Magnus?_

“Leave me alone, Ragnor,” he murmured.

“What?” Izzy asked, confused, reaching for Alec's hand as her eyes narrowed and shimmered with tears.

“Nothing,” Magnus said, and shook his head. “I'll—I'll do what I can. But I don't know—“

“Don't,” Izzy said. She took a deep breath and pulled Alec's hand to her face. “Don't say it.”

—

Alec followed the fire for a long time, or perhaps it was no time at all. Things moved by him in the blink of an eye and then slowed, languid, stuck in a portal that he couldn't touch. The ground he followed lengthened to the horizon line and then stopped, black against black, and he wondered if it went on forever. Sometimes his hands would begin to tremble, mimicking the feeling of a limb falling asleep after being held too long in an uncomfortable position, and he would look down just to ensure that his fingers were still there. They always were, but once, he thought he could see straight through them to the dark rocks below.

As he continued on, the space around him began to change. The rocks sprung up like trees and then blossomed overhead into the sloped rafters of the training room; from there, the blue-toned walls ran down in rivulets, paint that stretched and pulled and spread until he was surrounded by a place he knew by heart. Alec turned a slow circle, looking for cracks, but there was nothing but the smell of oiled leather and the nearby clanging of metal against metal. His fingers twitched and the rune on his side hummed: he knew this place in his soul, his core, the very fibers that ran through his being.

“Think fast!” called the voice behind him, and Alec spun and ducked, and the fingers that reached out for the thrown and offered bow were shorter and less sure, only twelve years old and still desperate to learn.

“So slow,” Jace laughed, holding up his seraph blade. “Think you can beat me this time?”

“I can beat you every time,” Alec replied.

Jace's blow came before he'd finished with the last word, but Alec had been expecting that. He knew the way Jace moved and thought, knew the passes of his thrusts before Jace himself did. Alec spun and avoided the blade coming down on his head, and as he twirled, he notched an arrow against the string and let it fly. He wasn't aiming to hit, only startle—it worked well enough, for Jace slid to the far side and Alec had another second to ready his next one.

Then Jace lunged again and Alec threw his bow up to stop the attack. The runes on his bow sparkled into being and glowed, and Alec flipped his bow around his wrist to fling Jace's blade to the wall, where it clattered and stilled on the tiles.

Jace threw his head back and laughed, open and wild and free.

“Come on, then,” Jace said, and started towards the open doorway that hadn't been there a second ago. “You're ready, aren't you Alec?”

Jace held out his hand, fingers splayed, and waited. 

“Let's go,” Jace said. “Let's go and we'll be together forever, just like you wanted.”

There was so much there as love and acceptance erupted through Alec's parabatai rune and pulsed in time with his rabbit-heartbeat. He nearly choked on the intensity of the sensations; his mind swayed and whirled, and he reached out, knowing only that this was his chance, this was his wish, wanting to touch Jace's fingers to feel the truth behind the bond that connected them.

Something warm and golden swelled between his ribs, barely held in check, and it knocked him back for a moment as he tried to catch his bearings. Alec looked down, expecting it to be visible sunlight filtering through his skin, but there was nothing. When he pressed his fingers against his sternum, they were long and lithe again, calloused from years of use and slightly trembling.

The spell broke, and Alec snapped his head up to stare at Jace. The boy was gone, and the man stood in his place with his hand still offered outwards, but there was something off, something wrong. The golden warmth in his chest rose up to the back of his mouth, to his tongue, and it tasted both sweet and bitter at the same time, honey mixed with an eye-watering alcohol.

“Alec,” Jace said, insistent and forceful, like the whirlwind he always was. “C'mon, let's go—we'll be together if you come with me.”

“No,” Alec mumbled. “This would never happen. Jace would never—“

There was a roar, something furious and frustrated, both far away and right next to him. The Institute around him began to collapse as Jace disappeared, and Alec doubled over, rune wailing in time with the earth shaking the very rafters down.

—

“Is it helping?” Izzy asked. “Can you find him?”

Magnus bit down on his lower lip and tasted the copper sting of blood, but he kept his hands up and his magic going. Alec's body was barely connected to the bond, and somewhere along that thread, his soul lingered, stuck outside the walls and unable to find his way back. It was dark, too dark, but Magnus felt enough of a flicker to know that wherever he was, Alec was still… alive.

He couldn't hold onto the sliver he felt, and it slipped through his fingers like sand in an hourglass, but it had been there and real and true. When the feeling disappeared, the bit of Alec jumped elsewhere; Magnus would have to find it again, follow where the part of his soul was spinning.

Magnus dropped down to the chair and sighed, pressing his hands against his forehead. “I had him, but I lost the contact. There's so little there, and it's… it's hard to get a handle on something that exists in the shadows between realities.”

“But he's alive?” Izzy asked.

“For now.”

On the pillows, Alec was groaning a bit as his head fell to one side, and Izzy leaned forward with a damp cloth to wipe at his face.

“What happens if you lose him completely?” she asked, a whisper that, any louder, she was afraid would happen too fast.

“I won't,” Magnus promised, but he wondered if he was talking more to her or himself.

He didn't want to think too hard about it. He stood again and reached out with his magic, trying to find the sparking bit of Alec's soul once more and ignoring, as best he could, the aching beginnings of _too much, using too much magic_ that was threatening to bloom in his belly.

—

Alec kept walking, only because there was nowhere else to go and his parabatai connection continued to pulse with the movement, saying _go, forward, go, find him_. Alec was helpless in the wake of its sway, his feet tugged one in front of the other.

The Institute had disappeared and had settled down into nothingness once more—black as the burned runes adorning his skin, and it was only thinking about his runes, and home, and _Izzy_ , that gave Alec pause. His head was beginning to grow fuzzy, and memories were starting to slip away. It was the expanse of nothing above him or the stretch of it below his boots, or maybe the silence that had descended like a cocoon, but whatever the case, he was beginning to fade.

He clutched at his chest, desperately, willing the golden warmth to come back again; it had been a cord connecting him to reality, and without it, he could feel his hold on it all slipping away.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on his rune, on his parabatai, and was startled from the stillness by a growl over his shoulder.

Alec spun, but he was weaponless, and in the darkness, he could see only a glowing pair of red eyes. _Demon_ , though he already knew, deep within the core of himself. He thought about fighting for only a split second before the rational side of his brain had already calculated the odds of surviving: low, too low, he had nothing to defend himself with, and so he took off in the opposite direction and ran with all the strength he could muster.

There was nothing as he moved but the wind against his cheeks and face. He was exhausted and his stomach was aching, and somewhere on the edges of the nothingness was Jace and Alec's connection to him, but all of it faded in the wake of getting away. He'd been a fool to think that he would be alone when he sought out the other part of his soul; he'd been a fool to think that getting lost was the only risk using the adamas stone held.

The demon on his heels was gaining. Alec tripped, nearly stumbling, and gashed his hand against the ground hard enough to draw blood. Holding his palm to his chest, he continued, even as his breath burned in his lungs and his limbs shook with exertion. Up ahead, in the darkness, there was a sliver of light, like a door left slightly ajar, an invitation to salvation. He only had to make it far enough to reach the portal and throw himself though—and behind him, there was the snap of cold teeth that nearly caught his heel.

Another second more, and he'd be overtaken. Alec sucked in one last breath as he reached the light and tumbled in, knees knocking against the ground and elbow banging against the doorframe.

When he looked up, he was in the ceremonial chamber of the Institute.

“What—“ he started, and then looked down at his hands, his arms, at the white embroidered sleeves that covered his skin.

“Alec,” Jace said, with a smile that stretched wide across his face and crinkled his eyes. He stepped off the front dais and strode down the aisle, wearing a black suit that clung to all the angles of his form. “I thought you weren't coming.”

There was Isabelle, adorned in gold, and the silent brother behind her—a wedding. Alec was at a wedding.

“Jace, I don't—“ he tried.

“Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now,” Jace said, with a head tilt that gave away his own nervousness. Alec looked across the front of the room and at the bodies sitting silently in the seats, and there was recognition, so powerful that it nearly knocked him backwards. _His_ wedding. This was his wedding. And he knew it in his buzzing blood, but couldn't quite get his thoughts to make sense as they skittered around his head and shrieked glee against his ears.

Alec swallowed hard, just as Jace took another step forward.

“Alec,” Jace said. “Let's go. Let's do this.”

The faces in the chairs were familiar, but Alec stumbled again as they made their way towards Izzy and the silent brother. _All_ of it was familiar, a memory that stung with both shame and elation, guilt that colored itself bright; Jace's hand was on Alec's wrist as Alec faltered, pausing, unsure what it was that was holding him back. This was what he'd always wanted—what _they'd_ always wanted.

The golden warmth, when it arrived, nearly knocked him out cold. It buried itself in his chest and waited, shimmering, glistening all the way down to the tips of Alec's fingers, and Alec spun because _the doorway_ , there was something important about the doorway.

“This isn't right,” he murmured.

“Alec, you know they gave us permission to do this,” Jace said, just over Alec's shoulder. “They granted us permission—it's okay, it won't weaken the bond, they promised.”

Alec said nothing, staring at the doorway and the person who never arrived, pressing both hands against his chest as if it might help to eleviate the pressure building there.

“Alec, let's go,” Jace pushed.

“This isn't right,” Alec repeated. He turned to Jace and found himself face to face with a demon. Jace's skin peeled away to reveal a gaping mouth of black, screaming, furious, and then Jace was gone and it was only the shadow creature from hell spiraling around the illustion of the Institute around them all. The guests were gone, and Izzy was gone, and the demon's cries of rage were so loud that Alec thought he might splinter apart.

He threw his hands over his ears and knelt down, waiting for the walls to crumble again, and it was a surprise when, instead, he fell through the floor as if it were quicksand, and there was nothing at all.

—

“We need to get him out of here!” Magnus cried, even as Izzy was pushing back against his shoulders, pleading with him not to kill Raj. “We need to find that piece of his soul to get him back—“

“We will!” Izzy exclaimed, and Magnus took a few steps back until his calves hit the bedframe. “Magnus, we will, we just need to think of something.”

Magnus whirled, anger sparking between his fingers still, and crossed to the other side of the bed. There was no change; sometimes Alec would mumble and sometimes he would thrash, but each time Magnus got a hold of the missing piece with his magic, it would be yanked away from him again, and he couldn't manage to hold on. Each time he lost it and had to find it again, Alec grew weaker, and Magnus' magic reserves drained lower.

On the other side of the room, Izzy had her hands pressed together, like a prayer, and then tilted them back against her lips. Her gaze darted down to Raj's form and the shards of glass that had fallen around him.

“Wait,” she said, slowly, and drew out the word. Maybe it _was_ a prayer. “Magnus, if you create a portal _right now_ —

He followed her gaze down to Raj's unmoving form.

“Yes,” he said, and normally he would have complimented her quick problem-solving skills, but he couldn't find the focus to do so. He was weakening and so was Alec, and Magnus couldn't quite seem to push down the rising panic. “Yes, that would work.”

He could feel his body shuddering as he began to weave the spell, but exhaustion was not something he could afford to dwell on.

“Step back,” he ordered, and as soon as Izzy's back hit he far wall, he let the spell go.

—

It felt like he had been wandering lost for weeks; it might have been, for all Alec knew. There was no way to mark the passing of time, if such a thing existed where was. All he had was the fading connecting cord he was trying to follow, but with each step he grew closer to the bond, the less sure of his direction he became. His rune fluttered, tired, wings beating far too slowly, and Alec's tongue was swollen and thick from dehydration. His steps grew heavier and slower, until he was barely moving forward at all.

He fell to the ground and tasted ash in his mouth, only there was no energy to summon to spit the dust back out so it lingered on his lips, coating them. His fingers curled against the ground, useless, as he huffed into the rock and dirt and waited, just waited, because he had nothing left. Against his shirt, his rune was only barely pulsing, too weak to be followed.

Alec was going to die.

He was going to die trapped between reality and… _this_ , whatever this was. The demon that had been plaguing his dreams would find him, and his body back at the Institute would never wake up. He'd never find Jace, he'd never see Izzy's bright smile again, he'd never—

The golden warmth came back in a rush of pleasure, so foreign and strange in that moment that Alec wanted to cry. It tugged on his chest, urging, a child's finger poking at his sides to get him up and moving again. It felt good, the light that he could feel intimately expanding in his chest; it felt strong and _compassionate_ , and Alec wanted to move himself into it instead of the ground to feel the bands of it wrapping lovingly around his form.

The demon was somewhere nearby: Alec could hear the rustling of it against the nothing-wind. He shifted, trying to find the energy to pull himself back up and keep going. The honey golden feeling inside his core grew brighter and stronger, and he focused on that, because it was the only thing that existed besides the darkness enveloping him.

_Come back, come back—_

There was something on the tip of his tongue, at the edge of his mind, and he just couldn't get there. Frustrated, Alec pushed himself up with his palms and spat the ash down onto the rocks. What was he missing? His thoughts were foggy, trapped in a haze, and he tried to concentrate on his rune and the bond. Was that what he had forgotten in this space, everything and nothing, a portal that connected worlds—worlds he couldn't seem to get back to? Was it Jace?

He pressed a hand against his stomach and thought of Jace, but the warmth didn't hum in response to that.

Just when he was about to give up, he heard the call: “Alec!”

He whirled on his knees, trying to find the source of it. Something was pounding an angry rhythm in his head, temples throbbing. That had been Jace, hadn't it? Alec _reached_ out and tried to find the voice again in the midst of all the swirling confusion and blanks in his mind.

“Jace?” he asked.

“Alec!” he heard, again, closer this time.

A blanket of relief settled over his shoulders. Alec had _found_ him, and the sensation was so strong that it almost hurt. He half-collapsed as Jace ran towards him and skidded, down to his knees, across the rock to Alec's side. There was a heavy hand on Alec's shoulder that felt real, so real, so _solid_ —

“Alec, what are you doing here?” Jace asked, and Alec sagged against him.

“Came to find you,” he mumbled against Jace's shoulder and the fabric bunching there. “Tracked you.”

“Alec, we gotta go,” Jace said. He prodded Alec into standing, half-pulling him onto his feet, which were wildly unsteady. “There's something out there, and it's following you.”

Alec sighed; he was so _tired_. “I know.”

“Alec, c'mon.”

Alec fell forward instead of backwards, against Jace's bulk, and then Jace had cupped Alec's face in his hands and was kissing him. There was a moment of _yes, finally_ before the warmth in Alec's chest flared up, all the way through his throat. He thought of dark eyes, nimble fingers covered in silver, and then he pushed himself backwards with strength he didn't think he had any longer.

“No,” he gasped, and his hands went to his hair to tug at it, just to give himself a sensation to focus on, so that he knew he was real. “This isn't—I don't want this.”

In his chest, the honey-gold was agreeing _not real, not real, come back_.

“Alec,” Jace said. Alec put his hand up, palm out, to stop the other man from approaching. This wasn't real; this wasn't right. This wasn't the feeling that had slowly burned away all the iron and steel he'd collected over the years, and Alec knew it, and the warmth inside his chest did, too. That golden light was trying to take him home, trying to lead him out, and it trembled with fondness.

This was the demon.

“Alec!” the not-Jace yelled, as Alec turned away from him and looked over the edge of the cliff. Had there always been that drop there, next to them, leading down into the abyss? There was nothing down at the bottom, but it was better than facing a demon Alec knew he couldn't beat. He was too tired to fight, too tired to keep going. He stared down at the blackness, the nothingness reflecting even more of a void back up at him, and jumped.

—

“What's happening?”

Oh, it burned, the cut of the knife—the irony that he would watch Alec die here, in his own apartment, under his own watch. The irony of being unable to bring back the one thing he was sure he desperately wanted to save. How many of his own rules had he broken to bring the boy into his life and at the end of it, he would see why it had been foolish to ever begin such a journey at all.

“He's slipping,” Magnus whispered, because he couldn't force his words any louder. His throat had closed off and his stomach had tied itself into a tight knot, and he knew he would try to scrub Alec's last moments from his memory for the rest of his life and would see them anyway, in the dark hours of the night when the world was still and his demons came out to play.

He didn't need to raise a hand to his cheeks to know that he was crying, and he couldn't remember a time when he had cried over a Shadowhunter: a day of many firsts, then, and none of them welcome.

The dull, dark ache of his magic depletion was his only solace as they stood motionless, watching Alec gasp for air.

—

Alec was falling and falling, and he thought it would never stop, and as his speed picked up, he let himself relax into it. It was the end, and he'd failed, but at least the demon hadn't been able to win in the end, and if there was nothing else to cling to, then Alec would cling to that. A soldier to the end—perhaps his mother would be proud.

He let go of Jace and the thrum of their parabatai bond. He let go of Izzy and the memories of her smile and warm arms. He let go of the warmth in his chest that felt like home.

Alec let go, and fell.

Until a hand reached out and grabbed his arm, yanking him up and forward with so much force it banged Alec's teeth together painfully. The fingers wrapped around his bicep and pulled, _pulled_ , until the blackness all disappeared in a rush around his form and he could _feel_ again. He crashed back into a body full of aches and tremors, sick nauseous feelings and a pounding headache.

“Oh my _god_ , Alec,” he could hear from Izzy as he buried his face in Jace's shoulder because _this_ was real. This was what his bond had been trying to find, and his rune thrummed a contented beat against his skin and soul.

“Jace Wayland, you are hereby sentenced to the City of Bones to await trial on the charge of high treason.”

And then Jace was gone again, with Aldertree's soldiers, and Clary was shouting after them and running down the hall, and Izzy pressed a hand against Alec's shoulder saying, “don't worry, I'm going to take care of this, just rest here,” and everything solid he'd gotten back seemed to be ripped out from under his feet again.

“I need to go, what's happening with Jace?” Alec tried, and couldn't quite find the energy to push himself up off the couch entirely. Everything was still strange and foreign, buzzing around his head, and Magnus touched his arm with an infinite amount of tenderness.

“You need some time,” Magnus said. “I need you to just rest here for awhile. You're in no condition to go tearing off after Aldertree and his men.”

Alec could hear the heavy footsteps thudding down the hallway. _Jace_ —but Jace was being led out of the building and Alec couldn't move, and there was nothing he could do as they led his parabatai to the City of Bones. He sank back against the leather, wincing, because every bone in his body seemed to be on fire, and Magnus' fingers stayed there on his arm.

“You were there,” Alec said, softly, as Magnus began to pull away. “I could feel you there.”

“I wasn't sure if it was doing much good,” Magnus admitted.

Alec looked up at dark eyes—he'd thought of him, down in the darkness. The warmth in his chest had never been his bond to Jace, and knowing that was enough to send a wave of heat to his face.

“You were trying to find me,” Alec said.

Magnus slid down to the side of the couch, hip brushing against Alec's thigh. “I'm just… glad you're back.”

“You saved my life,” Alec told him.

“No,” Magnus said, with a slow smile, as his fingers found the side of Alec's face and Alec sighed into the touch. “That was not me. But I tried, and perhaps that is enough.”

He needed to find out what happened to Jace. He needed to know what happened while he was gone, and why Izzy's face had been lined with shadows and guilt when she left. He needed to know about Valentine and the Clave, and what Aldertree had cracked down on. But for a moment, Alec let all of those thoughts drift away.

“Magnus,” he murmured.

Magnus leaned forward and kissed him, soft and feather-light, and the blossoming golden warmth surged back into Alec's lungs; in that moment, it was enough, and there was nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> hi I'm on [tumblr](http://aerodaltonimperial.tumblr.com/) and you can come bug me to write more it's cool (or ask me to please never write again lol)


End file.
